The Pittsburgh Steelers waived defensive back Doneiko Slaughter on Monday, ending his brief stay on the 53-man roster only four days after they had promoted him, via the NFL transaction wire.
The club announced the move as part of a set of roster transactions. Pittsburgh signed cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting to the active roster off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ practice squad, signed linebacker Marte Mapu to its own practice squad, and placed defensive tackle Derrick Harmon on injured reserve.
Harmon was hurt in Thursday night’s loss to the Cleveland Browns. Waiving Slaughter, who has fewer than four accrued seasons, terminates his contract and places him on waivers, where other teams can claim him.
Slaughter, 24, had been elevated from the practice squad for each of the Steelers’ first three games, the league maximum for standard elevations.
That forced Pittsburgh to sign him to the active roster on Oct. 1 if it wanted to use him again. The opening came the same day the Steelers traded cornerback Joey Porter Jr. to the Dallas Cowboys for a 2027 sixth-round pick and a 2028 second-round pick.
Slaughter dressed for the Thursday night game in Cleveland, a 27-24 loss that dropped Pittsburgh to 2-2.
His regular-season role stayed narrow. He appeared almost entirely on special teams, working the punt-return unit, and recorded two tackles in the Week 3 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
Through four games, he had logged 52 snaps, all on that unit.
The path to that roster spot was longer than the stay. An undrafted free agent out of Arkansas, Slaughter signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars after the 2025 draft and was released before the season.
He spent 2025 out of the league, then signed a reserve/future contract with Pittsburgh in January. The Steelers waived him in final cuts in late August and brought him back to the practice squad the next day.
Injuries in the secondary gave him an elevated preseason role; he finished the exhibition schedule with 10 tackles and a pass defensed while working both inside and outside corner and several special-teams phases.
At 6-foot and 190 pounds, the Atlanta native began his college career at Tennessee before using an extra year of eligibility at Arkansas in 2024.
In his only season with the Razorbacks, he started all 13 games and finished with 80 tackles, three tackles for loss, seven passes defensed, a sack and a forced fumble, according to the team.
Monday’s corresponding addition points to what Pittsburgh wanted instead.
Murphy-Bunting, a seventh-year corner drafted by Tampa Bay in the second round in 2019, has 82 career games, 65 starts, 11 interceptions and a Super Bowl LV ring. With Asante Samuel Jr. and Daylen Everette ahead of him, the Steelers chose a veteran backup over the practice-squad promotion they had made only last week.
